Kiss of Surrender (3 page)

Nicole had been a police detective before joining the female SEALs. Another job better suited to men. Not that he would say that aloud in the presence of a woman who might just clout him upside the head, as one had done at a NOW rally back in 1972.

That’s what he thought, but what he said was, “That is a lot of maybes. What do you care about my background as long as I get the job done? You cannot deny that I hold my own in SEAL training.”

“Yeah, by wheelbarrow management. You’re one of those people who only work when pushed.”

Oooh, she was really getting on his nerves now. “I am a Viking. We have our own way of doing things.” Which was a load of boar droppings. Even he knew he was not typical of Viking men. Certainly not like his brothers, who had managed to find a place in this new world: Vikar, who was successfully managing the VIK headquarters in a rundown castle in Transylvania, Pennsylvania; Sigurd, a physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital; Cnut, an international security expert; Harek, a computer whiz who was setting up an angel blog on the Internet; Ivak, who was presently managing his lustful inclinations in a prison; or Mordr, a soldier-for-hire, who should have been the one sent here, not him.

Nicole shrugged. “It’s the way you do things that rankles. And what’s with all this Viking crap you’re always spouting?”

Viking
crap
? Oooh, how he would like to tie her tongue in a knot! “I
am
a Viking, and I have no idea what Viking
crap
you refer to.”

“You’re always saying things like ‘Back in the Norselands, our weapon of choice was the broadsword.’ Or ‘We Vikings are known for our battle skills and our extreme good looks.’ Or ‘I am Viking, hear me belch.’ ”

He stiffened with affront. “I did not say that last thing.” Trond prided himself on having refined his cruder habits over the centuries. He only belched on rare occasions now, and then in private. Mostly.

“Earth to clueless swabbie. There are no Vikings today. They died out about a thousand years ago.”

That’s what you think.
“Some of us are still around.”

“Pure-blooded Viking, huh?” she jeered.

“That’s right.”
I wonder how many years of additional penance I would get for tying her tongue in a knot.

“Like a shitzu?” She grinned.

A big knot.
“More like a pit bull,” he said and made a growling noise at her.

“You’re a ghost, you know.”

“Huh?” He was dead, but he wouldn’t call himself a ghost.

“I ran a search on you in my old police database. You don’t exist. Nor does your friend Karl.”

Nosy, nosy, nosy!
“Must be the Jaegers have buried our identities.”
Or good ol’ Mike.

“Do you know Max from SEAL Team Five . . . Torolf Magnusson? He and that whole Magnusson clan claim to be Vikings.” The way she tossed a question at him suddenly, without warning, was no doubt some detective skill intended to trip him up. “Even Commander MacLean is married to a Viking, Max’s sister. And there’s a whole herd of that Magnusson family up in Sonoma.”

By the runes! This woman could talk a cat out of a tree, or a lustsome man out of a cockstand. Not that he had one. Not over her. Not that he couldn’t muster one up, given a chance. Not that he was taking that chance.

I swear, my brain is melting. Must be the heat. After the extreme cold of the Norselands, you’d think I would cherish this warmth, but a Viking is not meant for these climes.

“I asked you a question,” she prodded. The whole time she interrogated him, she shifted from foot to foot, as if impatient to be off to her next important mission. Did she never stand still? Was it a physical condition? Or something she did just to annoy him?

He crossed his eyes, and this time he counted to twenty in Old Norse. “No, I have not made the acquaintance of Max yet. He has been away on field operations while I’ve been here, and when he returned, I was at jump school at Fort Benning. I look forward to meeting him, though.” In fact, he’d heard so many odd things about the Magnusson family that he was curious.

“I got a new catalog from Audible Books today,” she said. Another out-of-the-blue remark meant to disconcert him, no doubt. “There’s a book there you might like.
Outwitting the Devil
. Interested?”

How appropriate! He couldn’t help himself. He burst out laughing.

She scowled at him.

They’d reached the parking lot, not the female officers’ quarters where he’d thought she was headed. He recalled then that Nicole lived off-base in Coronado in a small house she shared with two other WEALS. Trainees like him were not given that option.

“Well, do you accept my apology?” he asked.

Tilting her head up at him—she was a mere five-five or so to his six-foot-four, not that their size disparity daunted the pixie at all—she eyed him suspiciously. Like a show dog on point she was with him. “What you really mean is, will I be reporting you?”

He shrugged. “That, too.” Where were all the biddable women in the world, that’s what he wanted to know. Had they become extinct, like Vikings?

“No, I won’t be reporting you, but I will be watching you,” she warned. “I’m on to you, buddy.”

He doubted that sincerely.

“You’re hiding something.” She stared at him, as if waiting for him to reveal all.

Not in this lifetime, or a hundred others!
“Aren’t we all?”

An expression of pain crossed her face for a brief moment, stunning him into silence.
She has secrets, too?
Was it possible . . . Oh please, do not let it be so. Was Nicole Tasso the person he was sent to save?

His only clue as to the mission he and Karl were to accomplish here was to take out terrorists working for Jasper, king of the demon vampires, and to save one, or several, SEALs in danger of falling to the “other side.”

“You look like you smell a rotten egg,” Nicole said, opening the door to her little red Mustang convertible.

Which would have been appropriate since Lucipires, on being annihilated, melted into a pool of slime that smelled like sulfur, or rotten eggs. Not that she was in any way a Lucie; he would have known that right off the bat. But she could have been fanged by one and be in need of a vangel transfusion.

Maybe if I thrust my fangs into . . .

No, no, no! No thrusting.

Oh Lord! Let it not be so!
he prayed. And it was definitely a prayer, not an expletive. Vangels never, or almost never, used God’s name in vain.

He leaned in closer and sniffed.

“Are you smelling me?” The outrage on her face was almost comical. “First you imply I have a big bottom, and now you imply I have body odor. What a charmer!”

He just smiled. There was no scent of lemons, the usual clue that a person had been infected with the sin taint. No fang marks on the neck, either.
Whew! Thank you, Lord!

I wouldn’t be thanking anyone yet
, a voice said in his head. He’d recognize that voice anywhere. Mike. And the voice was laughing.

Two

Why are women always attracted to losers?  . . .

N
icole sat in her car, stunned, with the motor idling. Trembling with emotions she’d thought long dead, she stared at Captain Trond Sigurdsson as he strolled away from her. The biggest loser to walk the face of the earth! And also the sexiest.

No rushing for him. Nope, he just swaggered in a loose-hipped, lazy sort of way. He had the gait of a confident man. Too confident, in her opinion.

And talk about buns! His were choice.

Height was not a requirement for Navy SEALs, just upper body strength. As a result, many SEALs were of average height, or even short. Not this knuckle-dragging baboon. He was six-foot-four, and all of it lean muscle.

She flicked the air conditioning on to full blast to cool her overheated body. And not just because of the outside temperature.

What was wrong with her? What was this strange inner excitement that flooded her? Big men did not attract her. With good reason. Her ex-husband, Billy, a Chicago policeman—a sergeant now, despite his sins—had been over six feet tall, a weekend body builder and amateur pugilist who packed a mean punch, as she knew all too well.

She shivered in memory and reminded herself how far she’d come. People meeting her today would never believe she’d once been so weak and insecure that she’d let a man use her for a punching bag,
and
blamed herself. In fact, when she thought back ten years, she barely recognized the eighteen-year-old girl who’d fallen in love with a rookie cop noted for his twinkling green Irish eyes and lopsided grin. Not so noted as a wife abuser. She’d been an energetic, full-of-life, hopeless optimist before that. After three years, Billy had turned her into a whimpering doormat. That’s why it rankled when people like Trond the Troll berated her for being too peppy or pushy; all she could say was, “So, sue me!”

It had surprised the hell out of everyone back in Chicago, including her family, when she’d left Billy, who gave the outward appearance of a nice guy who’d never in a million years strike a woman. Hah! It had also surprised everyone when she’d gone to the police academy in another state and worked her way up to detective. Sort of an in-your-face flicking-the-bird at her ex. Or at her father, if you could call him that. Daddy Dearest had preferred his code of silence to his fellow men in blue over his own daughter. Said she always was a flake, needed a bit of discipline. And her mother, the original Church Lady, had advised her to “offer up” her suffering for the souls in Purgatory. An act of grace, she’d called it. Hah! What grace was there in being a human punching bag? Her only sibling, Teresa, had been only eight at the time and clueless.

Soon after that, Nicole had been recruited for WEALS, not so much for her detective skills but because she’d become an award-winning marathon runner, as well. The SEALs and WEALS did like their buff bodies.

Which brought her to the present and the puzzle of why she was drooling over another big man with twinkling eyes, albeit blue this time, and a killer grin. One who sure as sin was hiding something, if her detective radar was any indication. Was she a masochist?

“Hey, Tasso, who’s that sweet thang you’re oglin’?” asked her housemate Marie Delacroix as she dumped her duffel bag into the backseat and opened the front door to slide into the passenger seat. An ex-Marine from Louisiana, like Cage, Marie had been in the charter class of WEALS back in 2007, while Nicole had graduated this past year. Marie had joined the SEALs after losing her father in the Twin Towers attack.

“I’m not ogling the jerk. I was glaring.”

“Uh-huh.” Marie appeared unconvinced as she peered into the distance—Trond was about a half block away now—and pretended to fan herself. “Holy crawfish! That is one fine ass!”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Nicole lied.

Marie glanced her way and they both erupted with laughter.

“I thought you had to stay for ‘drownproofing,’ ” Nicole said as she engaged the car and backed out of the lot.

“Got canceled. Thank God! I just got highlights last weekend, and that chlorine is a killer for the hair.”

With all the attention the news media gave to Navy SEALs lately, they usually fixated on how strenuous BUD/S, the training program, was. What the public didn’t realize was that SEALs, and WEALS for that matter, had to continue that brutal physical program even after graduation into the teams. And that included “drownproofing,” where the person had hands and feet bound together and was then tossed into the water to “bob for life.” Great fun! And, yes, it was a killer on the hair, even with a rubber cap. Not that the SEALs with their high-and-tights minded, but the women did. They all recalled the time Candy William’s bottle-blonde hair turned green after a drownproofing session.

“Not my favorite rotation!” Nicole agreed.

“I’m starved. Wanna go out for a pizza?”

“I can’t. I’m teaching a motivational class at the teen center at seven, and then I’m taking a Zumba class at the aerobics studio at nine.”

“I swear, girl, do you ever just relax and do nothing? It’s Friday night, for heaven’s sake!”

“I like to keep busy.”

“There’s busy, and then there’s
busy
. You’ve got more energy than a school of Asian carp.”

“Carp?”

“Yeah, remember that
National Geographic
special we watched where the carp were so big and so overpopulating lakes that they were jumping out of the water like popcorn? Do you mainline Red Bull?”

Nicole laughed. “Natural metabolism.” Well, that was only part of the picture. In truth, she was always aware of those three wasted years where she’d done practically nothing, except what Billy had allowed her to do. No going outside, especially not shopping or doing lunch with the few friends she’d retained, not even to go jogging; she’d loved running, even then. No books or magazines, unless they were ones he approved. TV forbidden during the hours when he was on shift because he believed she was being influenced by shows like
Oprah
or
The View
.

Now that she could do whatever she wanted, she wanted to do it all. Seven years since she’d left, and she was still letting the brute affect her life!

She and Marie talked about everyday things then. Base gossip. What they’d done that day. What was coming up the next week. As they talked, Nicole drove and enjoyed the passing scenery in her peripheral vision. The idyllic resort community of Coronado, where she lived, was nestled between the massive North Island Naval Air Station and the much smaller Naval Amphibious Base on the Silver Strand, with the Special Warfare Center located on the ocean side of Highway 75 bisecting the base. The small touristy town boasted white sand beaches on the Pacific side and a marvelous view of the San Diego skyline on the other.

As she pulled into the driveway of their cottage on the palm tree–lined street, she could hear music blaring through the open windows. Blues queen Etta James was wailing out that classic “Stormy Weather.” Their other housemate, Donita Leone, must be back from her mission to Fallujah.

She and Marie exchanged worried glances. When Donita played the blues, it spelled trouble. Mostly she preferred upbeat songs by Lady Gaga, or even Marie’s rowdy zydeco CDs.

Entering the small living room, she and Marie followed the music to the tiny kitchen where Donita stood in all her five-ten, ebony-skinned glory, stirring a pot of what smelled like Crab Alfredo. On the counter was a freshly baked chocolate cheesecake. Of course, Donita didn’t have to worry about gaining weight. As a former Olympic swimmer, she had a body to die for.

But the cooking, along with the blues?

“I smell trouble.” Marie was sniffing the air, and it wasn’t the food she was referring to as trouble.

“Donita?” Nicole said, walking up and placing a hand on her arm. She saw then how red-rimmed her friend’s eyes were.

“I hate the bastard.”

“Uh-oh!” Marie said behind her.

They both knew who the bastard in question was. Sylvester “Sly” Sims had been a well-known black underwear model before joining the SEALs after 9/11. Like Marie, Sly had lost a family member in the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers; in his case, a brother. Sly and Donita had been involved in an on-again, off-again, love-hate relationship for the past five years. He must have been on this mission with Donita.

“What’d he do this time?”

“He’s engaged.”

“
What?
” she and Marie both exclaimed. As many times as Donita and Sly had broken up and made up over the years, there had never been any question that they belonged together.

“Are you sure?” Nicole asked Donita, who was dumping pasta into a pot of boiling water. A pigload of pasta! Was she expecting company, or was she expecting them to eat all this stuff?

“Oh, I’m sure, all right.” Donita swiped the back of her arm over her teary eyes. “Kendra Black is sporting a diamond the size of a golf ball.”

“No way!” Nicole’s jaw dropped. “Did you talk to Sly?”

Donita shook her head. “He tried to talk to me, but I told him to go fuck himself. He had the nerve to say, ‘You snooze, you lose, babe. I got tired of waiting, and Kendra gives good—’ That’s as far as I let him go. The two-timing rat bastard! Honestly, he’s been different lately, ever since he came back from survival camp on San Clemente Island. He even wanted me to . . . well, never mind.”

If a black woman could blush, Donita was doing it now.

“What did he want you to do?” she and Marie both asked.

“A threesome.” The look of disgust on Donita’s face was nothing compared to theirs.

“Eeew!” Nicole said.

Marie’s curiosity got the better of her, though. “With whom? I sure hope he meant another guy joining the sheets, not another woman. Never mind, the whole idea sucks big-time. I can just hear it now,” she said in an imitation of a deep, male-husky voice, “I love you, baby, but I gotta share you with my friends.” Reverting back to her own voice, she concluded, “Yeah, right, that’s love.”

“I really thought Sly loved me,” Donita said, more tears slipping down her face.

“Honey, he probably does, but men are as loyal as their options,” Nicole told Donita, handing her a tissue.

Donita blew her nose loudly and tossed the tissue in the trash. “I’m a good-looking woman. I take care of myself. Why is it that the grass is always greener in some other woman’s yard?”

“I still believe there are good men out there who don’t feel compelled to mow every pretty lawn in sight,” Nicole contended.

Marie gave Nicole a disbelieving look and glanced pointedly at a pile of her motivational books-on-tape that sat on the counter. Her roommates thought she was a Pollyanna for always looking for positive sides of everything. Well, not everything, or everyone, Nicole thought. She certainly had negative thoughts about Trond Sigurdsson.

Donita and Nicole jumped when Marie suddenly slapped a hand down on the countertop with anger. “Here’s a news flash, ladies: Men! Fucking assholes! They go apeshit over any woman who twitches her ass at them. And Kendra has been twitching her ass at Sly for a looong time. Talk about!” Normally Marie was supportive of Donita’s relationship with Sly, probably because of their shared grief over 9/11, but friendship trumped unfaithfulness.

That was true about Kendra, but probably unfair. Kendra was a fellow WEALS whom they all knew well. Women everywhere twitched more than their asses around Navy SEALs these days, especially after the Bin Laden killing. Not just Kendra. In fact, there was an expression called “yo-yo panties” that referred to the climate on any military base the day before deployment. These days, the expression applied to SEALs just about all the time. It was sickening, really.

On the other hand, Nicole had heard that due to all the physical endurance exercises in SEAL training these elite forces were known to exhibit some remarkable, let’s say, endurance in making love, too. No wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am for them. Not that she knew that from experience.

For some reason, an image of Trond Sigurdsson came to mind.
Bet my latest motivational book series he knows a lot about endurance.
She shook her head to clear it. No way was she going
there
! Besides, he was so lazy, he probably wouldn’t make the effort to prolong sex. Too much work!

“I know what you need . . . what we all need,” Marie said.

Oh good Lord! Is she reading my mind?

“Screw your classes for tonight, Nicole. We’re taking Donita to the Wet and Wild for a girls’ night out.”

Oh, that. Whew!

The Wet and Wild was a bar frequented by Navy personnel, men and women alike, but especially SEALs and SEAL trainees. The hangout featured a wet T-shirt spraying machine at the doorway, like a mini car wash with side sprayers. The doorman waived cover charges for any women willing to walk through it. Lots of them did. Political correctness was not a priority around military men, especially full-of-themselves SEALs, and some women just wanted to let loose and have a good time.

“Sly and Kendra might be there,” Nicole pointed out.

“All the better. Show him you don’t care,” Marie advised Donita.

Donita turned off all the burners on the stove and said, “I’ll go, but only if we all wear our Slut Sisters outfits.”

Oh my God!
Donita was referring to the skinny black jeans, sparkly tube tops, and red cowboy boots the three of them had bought for Mardi Gras a few years back. Cowgirl hats and Band-Aids over the nipples optional. “I can skip my Zumba class, but I have to show up at the teen center for the motivational class. There’s no one to substitute for me on such late notice and no way to notify the kids of a cancellation.”

“Honey, we can go to the Wet and Wild
after
your class. Besides, if you show up in your cowgirl slut outfit, that’ll be more motivation than those teens ever got.” This from Donita, who was already piling dirty dishes into the sink. She looked up pleadingly. “So, are we agreed?”

Hesitantly, Nicole joined her two friends in a three-handed high five.

“All for one and one for all,” they shouted.